Just when I thought it couldn’t be any better, he pressed a single fingertip against that one place that had the power to send me over the cliff as if I was dropped from a helicopter. He rubbed my clit with just the right amount of pressure. Not too hard. Not to gentle. And the waves began, coursing through me like electricity following a current.
I don’t think I’ve ever experienced an orgasm quite like that. But again, it probably didn’t count when most of the orgasms you ever experienced came from your own hand.
I was still riding the wave when Donovan could no longer contain his moans, when he pressed himself as deep against me as he could and began to ride a wave of his own.
He was my first. But I never thought we’d find our way back to one another.
This sure complicated things. But I was riding a wave.
Chapter 14
Donovan
Her skin was like silk. I ran my fingers over her shoulder again and again, loving the way it felt against the roughness of my fingertips. I loved the little freckles that were scattered along her shoulder blades, the tiny blemishes that danced along her spine, growing fainter and fainter the further down they went until they completely disappeared. I loved the way her bottom was so round that it was like playing on a motocross trail when I ran my finger down her spine and up those gorgeous cheeks.
“I’ve never known anyone who was so fascinated with my back.”
“Then you haven’t been hanging out with the right people.”
She peeked at me from under her arm, hiding the smile that the tiny dimple in her cheek gave away.
“What do you know about the people I’ve been hanging out with?”
“If they didn’t love this back, then they were the wrong people.”
She laughed, the sound like the tinkle of a bell.
I leaned close and kissed her shoulder. She turned quickly, catching me by surprise, and stole a kiss. I sighed against her mouth, tugging her close for a minute.
“We should probably think about heading back up to the main house,” I said after a minute.
“Do we have to?”
“If we don’t want them coming down here to retrieve us.”
She groaned, but she flipped over on her back as though she was going to get up. But she didn’t. She stared up at the ceiling as though there was something fascinating stuck up there.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Depends,” I said, propping myself up on my elbow and using the very tip of a fingernail to trace a pattern around her nipple. It immediately puckered, turning her flesh into this dark pink field of lines and dots.
She pushed my finger away. “How did David end up in the wheelchair? Was he military, too?”
“No.” I lay back down, turning onto my back and staring up at the ceiling, too. “He was FBI. But that has nothing to do with his injury.”
“How was he hurt?”
“Car accident. He was in Austin, Texas, celebrating his father’s election to Congress when they crashed their car after slipping on some black ice.”
“Was he driving?”
“Yeah.”
She shook her head. “That’s too bad.”
“What’s really too bad is that the paralysis might be reversible. The doctors say it’s caused by bone fragments pressing on the cord. If he had them removed, he could walk again.”
“Then why doesn’t he?”
“Guilt, I think.” I rolled over to look at her again. “He feels guilty for what happened to his parents, so he figures life in a wheelchair is proper punishment.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Yeah, well, that’s what happens when you wrongly accept responsibility for something that was out of your control.”
Her eyes darkened a little and her jaw tightened. She climbed off the bed, reaching down to grab her panties from off the floor.
I reached for her, and she looked back at me. No smile. But no hatred beaming from her eyes either.
“What’s the deal with Kirkland?” she asked.
I shrugged, laying back to enjoy the show of her getting dressed. “I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather have at my side when there’s trouble,” I said. “He and Ash and Joss are the best at what they do. And he’s a charmer.”
“I caught that.”
“Yeah,” I said, trying not to remember that show this morning. “It comes in handy when we have a female target who’s falling apart. But it’s sort of like the wrap party of a porn movie having breakfast with him.”
Kate started to laugh. But then she stopped in the middle of sliding her sweater over her head, her eyes wide when she finally tugged it over her head.
“What?”
“I think I just remembered something.”
I sat up as she settled back down on the edge of the bed. I knew not to push her, but I was anxious to hear what she had to say. The sooner we got her out of danger, the better.
“When you said porn…” She tilted her head slightly. “I remember I was thinking about a loan application that had come in over the weekend. A business loan.”
“For a porn site? Does your bank do that?”
She shook her head, raising a finger to silence me. “Brothel,” she said slowly, and then she smiled brightly. “It was an older gentleman who wanted to open a social club for men his age. But what he proposed was basically a brothel for senior citizens.”
I laughed. “Well, I suppose equal treatment…”
She glanced at me and smiled. “Would you go to something like that?”
“When I’m seventy and my wife is dead? Hell, yeah!”
She slapped my arm. But then that look came into her eyes again.
“I was thinking about it as I walked to the parking lot. And then…”
I waited a minute. And then two. Then three.
“And then?”
She sort of stretched her neck, doing this little thing that made it clear she was struggling with her thoughts.
“I saw something.”
“What?”
She shook her head. “Someone was in the alley. I thought it was just the security lights glinting off of something, but then it moved. And I knew something was wrong. I couldn’t see who it was or what he was doing, but I knew something was off.”
I slid my arm around her so that she knew she wasn’t alone. That she was safe. She shivered as she nestled against me, burying her head against my shoulder for a second.
“I was scared. I remember that. But I don’t know why.”
“Had something else happened?”
She didn’t answer me right away, but I had this feeling deep in my gut that there was more to this story than anyone had bothered to find out. Even me.
“Somebody broke into my car a couple of weeks ago.”
“Kate—”
She pulled back and looked at me. “This is Santa Monica. It’s not the crime capital of the world, but it’s not exactly a utopia either. I didn’t think anything about. They didn’t get anything that I could tell, so I didn’t call the police. I didn’t see the point of going through the hassle. But it left me a little spooked.”
“When did this happen?”
“Two weeks ago Monday.”
“Another Monday?”
“Yeah.”
“Whoever this is must know you work late on Mondays. They must have been watching you for a while.”
She shivered again. “Why would someone be after me? I’m a nobody.”
“I don’t know. An ex-boyfriend, maybe, who wasn’t happy to see your relationship end? Or a customer who’s obsessed with you?”
She shook her head. “I have had one boyfriend in the past three years and he…I don’t think he’d care enough to be unhappy. And I don’t really have customers. Just people I meet with maybe once and that’s when we sign papers. Most of our loan applications come in over the internet these days.”
“Maybe it’s someone you just didn’t know cared that much.”
>
“Maybe.”
I pulled her into my chest and ran my hand slowly down the length of her back. “Nothing’s going to happen to you, babe. I promise.”
We sat there like that for a few minutes. Then she slowly pulled away, kissed me gently, then stood and finished dressing. I followed suit, aware of her eyes on me when I turned my back to grab my pants. I knew she saw the scar. I knew she was wondering what had happened. But that wasn’t a story I was ready to get into.
“Donovan,” she began.
“We should go,” I interrupted. “Ash is probably back from your house, and he might have new information we need.”
Her eyes moved slowly over me, hesitating on the tattoo on my chest. Then she nodded.
“Okay.”
And that’s when I knew she was frightened. Really frightened.
The Kate I knew would never drop an issue she really wanted to pursue unless she had a reason.
She’d remembered more than she was revealing.
Chapter 15
At the Compound
“We have visitors.”
Ash walked over to David’s workstation and watched the car pull up to the front gate. He recognized Mr. Thompson the moment he leaned out the window to speak into the intercom.
“Hello?” they heard him say over the computer speakers. “Anyone there?”
David glanced at Ash, his eyebrow raised in question.
“Let him. I was going to head over to his house later, anyway.”
David just nodded, punching some button on the keyboard. Immediately, the gate began to swing back, making room for the compact Mercedes to slide through it. We watched on the screen as he drove down the drive, taking the subtle curves slowly.
The front door opened and Donovan came strolling in with Kate at his side. They weren’t touching, but a blind man could see that something had changed between them. Ash felt his spine stiffen. He was beginning to regret not taking Donovan off the case the moment he told him that this client was personal to him. He’d thought that by the way Kate reacted to him in the hospital and the way he responded that Donovan finally had put his past behind him. But now…if he’d known about the romantic aspect of his relationship with Kate Thompson in the past, he never would have let this go forward.
Donovan was his brother just as much as David was. He didn’t want to see him hurt. He’d been through enough already.
Ash strolled over casually, a fresh cup of coffee in his hands.
“Your father’s here.”
Kate looked up, surprise widening her hazel eyes. “My dad?”
Ash nodded. “Must have heard about the chaos at your house during the night.”
A thoughtful look crossed her face. “Yeah. One of my neighbors might have called him.”
Donovan moved up behind her and whispered something close to her ear. She nodded, and he stepped away, but not before Ash saw his hand linger on the small of her back.
Shit! Donovan…
Donovan headed off toward David’s workstation. Normally Ash would follow him, but he chose to remain with Kate instead. He gestured for her to take a seat on a low loveseat that as right there to her left.
“I know last night was pretty crazy.”
She nodded. “Definitely not something I thought I’d be doing on a Wednesday night.”
“This whole thing is pretty disorienting for most people. Takes them out of their comfort zone and thrusts them into a place that is uncomfortable and sometimes frightening.”
She focused on him, understanding spreading from those deep eyes to the slight frown of her full lips.
“For you, this is a temporary situation. Eventually, the person doing this to you will be found and incarcerated. Then you will be able to go back to your everyday life.” He paused, his eyes searching hers. “For Donovan, this is his everyday life.”
Her eyes fell to the floor. He thought, for a moment, that she was processing what he’d said, perhaps coming to an understanding. But when she looked up again, her eyes fixed on his, he could see that same stubborn determination that he’d met in her hospital room.
“I get that you care about him. I even get that you probably know our history and you might even think that my opinion of Donovan is off or skewed in some way. But, to be perfectly honest, this is our business. Donovan’s a big boy. He knows what he’s getting into with me, probably better than you do.”
“I just want to make sure one or both of you don’t get hurt when this is all said and done.”
She nodded as she placed her hand on his knee. “We’re both grownups. We can watch out for ourselves.”
It seemed like an ironic thing to say, considering the nature of her relationship with Gray Wolf Security at the moment. However, Ash couldn’t help but admire her hutzpah. It would likely get her through whatever was yet to come.
“Mr. and Mrs. Thompson are here,” Rose called from her desk, gesturing to the front door.
Ash stood and went to greet them. Mr. Thompson’s expression was tight, but Mrs. Thompson was more interested in checking out the house and the people populating it than in consoling her clearly upset husband.
“Mr. Thompson,” Ash said, offering his hand. “It’s nice to see you again.”
“What the hell is going on, Grayson?” Mr. Thompson said. “I get a phone call from a friend telling me that cops were all over my daughter’s house all morning.”
“I wanted to wait until we had all the information before we called you.”
Mr. Thompson opened his mouth to argue when Kate came around Ash.
“Daddy.”
He hugged her as if he’d not seen her in twenty years. Ash watched, touched by this clear example of familial affection. He remembered those kinds of hugs with his mother and father. He might not seem like the kind of guy who was close to his parents, but he adored them and believed that they adored him. And he missed them every minute of every day, especially at times like this.
He glanced over at David and caught him watching. However, the moment had a different impact on him. David expression tightened and his eyes darkened. And when Ash made the mistake of catching his eye, he immediately turned away.
There was that guilt. Ash had worked for more than a year to ease his guilt, to make him see that the accident was not his fault. But once David made up his mind about something, his mind was made up. There was no changing it.
“Daniel,” Donovan said, offering his hand to Mr. Thompson as he finally released his daughter.
“What’s going on, Donny?”
Donovan gestured for Mr. Thompson to follow him back to the same loveseat Ash and Kate had just abandoned. The five of them took a seat in the small sitting area—after Mr. Thompson called to his wife several times to get her to pay attention to them—and Donovan quickly explained how the program David had designed notified him of a possible intruder and how he got Kate out of the house as quickly and safely as he could.
“We have reason to believe that whoever killed the security guard at your daughter’s bank is after Kate,” Ash said, watching alarm burst across Mr. Thompson’s face at the same time Kate looked down at her hands, resignation clearly written on the curves of her face. “We are working closely with the Santa Monica Police Department to identify this person as quickly as possible. In the meantime, we will be keeping Kate in a safe house we own in downtown Santa Monica.”
Kate’s eyebrows rose. So did Donovan’s.
Normally, in a case where there was some thought that the safe house had been compromised, the target would be housed at the compound. But Ash didn’t want Donovan and Kate to have the opportunity to spend too much time alone. Although they’d be physically alone in a safe house, all the safe houses were wired with cameras, so they were never truly alone. It’d be safer for Donovan. Then, when the case was over, if he wanted to pursue something, Ash couldn’t do anything about it.
“Our safe houses are as secure as this compound,” he assured everyone. “There is
no reason to believe that there will be a repeat of what happened last night.”
“What progress are the police making?” Mr. Thompson asked.
“Our liaison with the Los Angeles Police Department, Detective Warren, will be here momentarily to update you,” Ash said.
“You got any coffee?” Mrs. Thompson suddenly asked, gesturing to the cup Ash still held, unconsciously, in his hands.
“Of course.”
Ash stood and made his way to the kitchen, digging a mug out of the cupboards and pouring coffee for her and refreshing his own. He turned to take the mugs back to the living room only to discover Mrs. Thompson had followed him. She was standing practically in his face, only inches from him, a warm smile on her lips.
“You sure are a looker,” she said softly, her eyes moving slowly over the length of him. “Are you married?”
Ash could normally handle himself with women, but this one was about as far from typical as any woman he’d ever met. He stepped back, but there wasn’t much he could do to protect himself, not with two coffee mugs in his hands.
“Veronica?”
She didn’t turn even as Donovan came up behind her.
“What do you say we go back to the couch? I think Daniel and Kate could really use your support right now.”
“Daniel can take care of himself,” Mrs. Thompson said, not taking her eyes off of Ash. “And Kate never liked me. She thinks I’m some sort of gold digger or something.”
“Yes, well,” Donovan began, clearly at a loss. “Sometimes even tough guys need a little comfort.”
Mrs. Thompson sighed heavily. “Oh, alright,” she said, her eyes raking over Ash one last time. “But you and I should have a conversation sometime.”
DONOVAN: A Standalone Romance (Gray Wolf Security) Page 10